


Keeping Company

by whumphoarder, xxx_cat_xxx



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Banter, Blood and Injury, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Stark Lake House, Stitches, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23725747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whumphoarder/pseuds/whumphoarder, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: While attempting to look after his migraine-riddled mentor, Peter manages to injure himself badly enough to need Tony’s help.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 83
Kudos: 510
Collections: Favourites (BQuincy)





	Keeping Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cass/gifts).



> Basically, we are incredibly predictable people, so we each wrote our favorite whump trope (Cat: Tony + migraine, Bethany: Peter + stitches) and combined them to make our first collab story in response! Hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed creating it together :D
> 
> For Cass, who requested Tony with a migraine and Peter trying to help, but running into problems of his own.

Tony spits saliva into the toilet bowl for the umpteenth time, wishing that his stomach would get it over with and empty itself already just so that he can get back to bed. Not that it would make much of a difference; his head hurts no matter where he is, but he knows the rest of his body is not going to like the hour he just spent kneeling on the tiled bathroom floor come tomorrow. 

“Tony? Are you in there?” someone calls quietly from outside the door. It takes Tony’s migraine-riddled brain a moment to place the voice. _Peter, right._ Peter, who is staying over at the lake house this weekend to help him upgrade FRIDAY’s interface while Pepper takes Morgan downtown for a day trip. 

“Tony? Can I come in?” Peter calls. He sounds a bit more anxious now, making Tony realize that he never actually answered.

“Yeah,” he rasps, and his head thanks him with another vicious throb of pain that he can feel reverberating in the pit of his stomach. He reaches back for the doorknob with an arm that isn’t there before recalling that he took the prosthesis off in the garage because it was hurting him earlier. Then he remembers that he didn’t even lock the door to the bathroom. God, he’s a mess today. “‘S open.” 

Peter steps in and immediately winces at the sight of Tony slumped on the floor. “Hey. Uh, did you throw up?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head. “Just nauseous.” 

“Ah, okay.” The worry in Peter’s voice is clear. Tony has been getting migraines more frequently since the snap, but the kid has never witnessed one quite like this before. It was bad enough that Tony didn’t even make much of a fuss when Peter sent him to bed after his hands were shaking so badly that he’d slopped coffee over some exposed circuits in the mainframe and shorted them out.

He squints up at Peter. “Don’ worry, kid. It’ll pass.” 

Peter nods. He crosses his arms awkwardly, looking like he’s not quite sure what to do with them, and leans against the doorframe. “Uh, how long have you been in here?”

Tony shrugs a bit. “An hour? Two?”

Peter’s face falls. “Why didn’t you tell me it’d gotten this bad? You said I should just do my homework because you were gonna fall asleep anyway.”

“Well what would you have done about it?” Tony retorts. It comes out ruder than intended and Peter’s gaze immediately drops to his feet. A pang of guilt hits Tony and he sighs, sluggishly rubbing his forehead. “Sorry. ‘S just frustrating.”

“No, it’s okay,” Peter reassures, sighing as well. “Just wish I could do something.”

“Build me a new brain,” Tony jokes weakly. “Sell this piece of crap on eBay. Someone’ll buy it—they always do.” 

Just then another wave of nausea washes over him. His stomach clenches and for a moment he’s sure he is going to throw up. He bends back over the bowl and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing out carefully. Saliva is pooling in his mouth and the urge to gag is overwhelming, but still, he fights it. Despite how close he and the kid have gotten in the months following Thanos’ defeat, Tony isn’t quite ready to let Peter witness him losing his lunch. 

“Actually,” he gasps out after swallowing thickly, “I think there’s some ginger ale in the kitchen. Can you, uh...?” he flaps his hand around.

Peter nods eagerly. “Yeah, for sure,” he says, and disappears through the open door. 

The moment he’s out of the room, Tony gags. Nothing comes up, but the pain accompanying the movement is so bad that it sends white lights crisscrossing through his vision. 

After another few dry heaves, he lets his head sink down against the rim of the bowl with a low moan that luckily nobody else can hear. He’s shaking and drenched in cold sweat. _Pretty pathetic, Iron Man_ , he thinks. 

Then he hears the sound of glass shattering downstairs.

Tony lifts his head weakly. “FRI?” he rasps. “Wha’ was that?”

“Peter appears to have broken a drinking glass,” FRIDAY reports, her volume a bit lower than usual.

“Hm.” As long as it’s not that hideous French sculpture in the dining room that Pepper’s grandmother gave to her, they should be fine. Not that Tony wouldn’t _love_ an excuse to finally be rid of that thing—it gives him the creeps. “Is he alright?” he croaks.

“He assures me he is perfectly fine and will be clearing the mess up momentarily,”—Tony gives a small, satisfied hum and lets his eyelids drift back closed—“just as soon as he manages to stop the bleeding,” she finishes.

“Hm… wait, what?” It takes about two seconds longer than usual for Tony’s impaired brain to latch on to the meaning of that sentence. “What bleeding?”

 _“I’m totally fine, Mr. Stark!”_ Peter’s voice hollers up the stairs. Tony winces at the sound; he always forgets about the kid’s enhanced hearing. _“Got it handled!”_

“In attempting to catch the falling glass, he sustained several lacerations to his right hand,” FRIDAY informs. “Most are superficial, though one of the cuts is bleeding quite heavily and may require medical attention.”

“God, kid, what did you do this time?” Tony groans quietly as he reaches for the sink to pull himself upright. The change in altitude dials up the pain another few notches and makes his vision swim. He maneuvers his way through the dimly lit master bedroom, swaying almost drunkenly.

The sunlight streaming in through the hallway windows when he opens the bedroom doors feels like a personal assault. Tony groans in pain, unable to stop himself, and brings his elbow up to cover his eyes. “FRI, blinds,” he manages to say through clenched teeth. The AI immediately draws the integrated blinds and the hallway blissfully darkens.

“Mr. Stark? Are you okay?” the kid calls from downstairs. “Don’t come down―I got this!” The slight waver of Peter’s voice at the end of the sentence however makes it clear to Tony that the kid has _not,_ in fact, got this _._

“Too late,” he calls back, and then flinches at the volume of his own voice. 

The stairs are a challenge with the added aura and wooziness on top of the usual balance issues he still has whenever he doesn’t wear his prosthesis. Holding tightly to the railing with his left arm, Tony concentrates on putting one foot in front of another. He has to stop twice—once to wait for a dizzy spell to pass, and the second time to breathe through another wave of nausea—but he makes it down in one piece. 

“Pete?” he asks when he reaches the landing. 

There’s a clattering sound and a muffled swear from the kitchen.

“Whatever you’re doing, just stop,” Tony says tiredly as he moves toward the kitchen, keeping his hand on the wall for balance. “Just sit down, and wait for….” he trails off, standing at the room’s threshold now and getting his first glimpse of the scene. “Yikes.” 

It looks like something straight out of a B-grade horror flick. Peter is crawling around on the crimson droplet-stained floor, frantically trying to pick up glass shards with his left hand while holding his right—wrapped in a thick, bloodsoaked wad of paper towels—pressed against his chest. He glances up when his mentor stops in the doorway, eyes wide. “I’m fine—I promise,” he blurts.

“Yeah, you and me both, kid,” Tony mutters. He stands there for a moment, his gaze traveling blankly from the blood and glass pieces littering the floor, to the kid’s Pokémon-socked feet, and waits for his sluggish brain to formulate a plan of action.

“Broom,” Tony decides finally, and side steps carefully in his leather-soled slippers over to the pantry to retrieve it.

“Uh, did you still want the ginger ale?” Peter asks nervously. “Because it’s right over there,” he rambles, nodding to the bottle on the counter as he continues picking up glass. “It’s not cold or anything, which is why I was gonna put it in a cup with some ice, but—”

“Pete,” Tony interrupts.

Peter glances up at him. “Yeah?”

“I’m not all useless, alright?” Tony says. Peter opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but Tony just holds up a finger, shushing him. “Just let me help you. Please.”

Closing his mouth again, Peter gives a single nod. “Alright.”

Tony grabs the broom and uses it to clear a path across the floor to Peter. The closer he gets, the easier he can see the kid’s pallor, which does nothing to decrease his worry.

“Alright, let’s see it,” he says, nodding to Peter’s towel-wrapped hand.

Looking reluctant, Peter peels back his makeshift bandages. Fresh blood immediately starts flowing from a deep, lateral gash spanning across the top of Peter’s palm. Smaller, superficial cuts cover his fingers, and Tony can see at least one piece of glass still sticking into his hand just below the thumb. 

“Jesus…” Tony breathes. He isn’t a squeamish person, but this would be sickening even if his stomach wasn’t already on the verge of crawling up his throat. “How did you even _do_ that?”

Peter gives a pained smile. “Super strength? Tried to catch the glass on the way down, but I guess I grabbed it too hard. Kind of embarrassing, actually...”

Tony swallows thickly. “Please don’t ever try to catch me if I’m falling.” He briefly closes his eyes, breathing out, and then forces himself to open them again. The blood flow from Peter’s palm hasn’t stopped; on the contrary, it is now steadily dripping onto the floor. “Alright, stitches,” he decides, covering the wound again. “Bathroom. Let’s go.”

Peter doesn’t protest, but he does pale somewhat upon hearing the word ‘stitches.’ Whether it’s from nerves or the blood loss starting to take its toll, the kid is visibly unsteady on his feet once he gets up. Tony would have offered a supporting hand, but he isn’t faring much better himself. The two of them start shuffling down the hall like a pair of tipsy penguins—Tony holding onto the wall for balance, and Peter clutching his injured hand to his chest, swaying ever so slightly.

“Sit down,” Tony orders once they reach the bathroom, motioning at the toilet. Peter obeys, letting himself sink down onto the lid with a heavy exhale. Tony flips on the overhead light and can barely suppress a moan when the brightness hits his retinas, but if he has any hope of fixing this, he needs to see.

He leans into the doorframe a little and briefly wonders just who he pissed off in a past life to deserve this delightful day before turning his attention back to the teenager currently bleeding all over his luxury white bath mat.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter mumbles. “You should just lie down, actually―I can take care of this on my own.”

“Sure kid,” Tony huffs. “If ‘taking care’ means passing out on the bathroom floor.” 

Peter raises an eyebrow. “You’d rather us _both_ pass out on the bathroom floor?” 

“Gets lonely down there. Can keep each other company,” Tony mutters. He pushes himself off the wall and moves over to the medicine cabinet to start gathering the supplies they’re going to need. The suture kit he locates quickly enough, but it takes him a full minute to remember where Pepper keeps the tweezers and his hands are shaking so much that he almost drops the box of gauze pads. Then he pulls Morgan’s little step stool out from below the sink and sits down on it next to Peter. “Give me your hand.”

Upon closer inspection, there are two small pieces of glass still embedded in Peter’s palm. It takes Tony a couple of tries to remove them with the tweezers, but eventually he succeeds. Then he picks up the bottle of disinfectant from the counter and holds it out to Peter. “Can you open this?”

Peter gives him a puzzled look. “Aftershave?” 

“Hm?” Tony frowns, then squints at the label of the bottle. “Oh.” He sets it back down. “Just testing you.” Peter rolls his eyes and Tony reaches behind himself for the correct bottle this time. Between their two working hands, they manage to remove the childproof cap and Tony gets the bottle in position over Peter’s hand.

“Okay, deep breath,” he advises.

Peter sucks in a sharp inhale, then bites his lip as Tony pours bubbling disinfectant over the cuts. Once the wounds are clean, Tony uses his teeth to tear open the packet containing the (thankfully pre-threaded) surgical needle. Peter gulps at the sight.

Tony carefully picks up the needle with forceps. “You alright?” he checks.

“Yeah, fine,” Peter grits back, looking anything but fine. “Let’s just get it over with.”

That turns out to be easier said than done. Try as he might, Tony can’t get his eyes to focus properly on the wound and his trembling fingers keep causing the needle to jump—not to mention the kid’s anxious flinching. After five full minutes of fiddling with the needle, Tony’s barely managed two stitches. Then the pungent stench of disinfectant mixing with the scent of Peter’s blood suddenly becomes too much for his stomach to take. 

“Hang on,” he mutters before standing up and spinning around just in time to heave violently into the sink.

(So much about not throwing up in front of the kid.)

“Tony?” Peter asks in a weak voice when Tony’s retching tapers off. 

“Just gimme… a minute,” Tony gasps, trying to breathe through the blinding pain searing through his skull. He shakily wipes his mouth, praying that he isn’t in for another round. “Sorry. I’ll fix it.”

“I know, I just—” Peter looks down at the needle, which is still stuck in his hand mid-stitch, and breathes out a careful exhale. Sweat is glistening on his face. “Maybe it’d be better if you just talked me through it?”

Somehow, the kid manages to look at him with both pleading and pity, and it causes a flare of anger in Tony’s chest at his own patheticness. He has to swallow hard to clear the tightness from his throat before croaking out, “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

Peter picks up the needle and forceps with his left hand and follows Tony’s muttered instructions. The knots are the hardest part to explain. Tony has to talk Peter through which direction to pull the threads and how many times to wrap them around before tying them off, and it’s taking all of his patience to do so.

“It’s like the time May tried to teach me how to tie my tie for homecoming,” Peter murmurs, pulling the needle through his skin with the forceps. “Same frustration, just more blood.”

Tony huffs a bit and massages his own aching temples. “Still can’t believe you made it to sixteen without ever wearing a tie…”

“No, I’d _worn_ ties before,” Peter retorts, keeping his voice low, “but Ben always tied them for me.” He lets out a little hiss as he tugs the thread to pull the skin closed.

“Not so tight, kid,” Tony corrects. Peter nods and gives it more slack. It seems to be helping the kid to have something else to focus on besides the sutures, so Tony continues. “Jarvis had me doing double windsors the same week I learned to tie my shoes. Think I was three.”

“Child prodigy...” Peter huffs, though there’s no heat behind his words. After a moment he says, “Did Jarvis teach you to do stitches too?”

“Nah, that was Rhodey.” Tony feels his stomach twisting again at the recollection of that night and shudders a bit. “Don’t mouth-off to drunken frat boys, kid. Never ends well.”

Peter smirks a bit as he starts the next suture. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Eventually, they manage to finish stitching the wound closed. Tony douses him with antiseptic again, then wraps Peter’s hand in gauze bandages until it vaguely resembles an oven mitt.

“Okay.” Tony lets his head fall back against the counter and sighs exhaustedly. “Congratulations, kid—you just cleared another level on the way to becoming a full Avenger.”

Peter grins weakly. “It was kinda badass, wasn’t it?” He gazes down at his hand as if he can’t quite believe what he just did. Then he looks over at Tony and his face sobers. “You should go lie down. And I need to clean up the kitchen.” He starts to get to his feet, but the second he’s up, the color seems to drain from his face. Tony shoots out his hand and grips the kid’s bicep. “Or maybe I’ll just sit for a minute,” Peter murmurs, sinking heavily back down onto the toilet lid. “Or two.”

“Yeah, you do that,” Tony says in concern. “Please don’t faint and break your leg or something. I’ve hit my capacity for field surgeries today.”

While Peter rolls his eyes, Tony mutters for FRIDAY to dim the lights. The brightness in the room immediately decreases to a minimum and Tony could honestly cry in relief. Giving up all pretenses, he slides down off the step stool and stretches out on the floor mat, crossing his arms behind his pounding head to make a sort of cushion.

“Gross,” Peter mutters.

“I threw up Pep’s carrot soup today,” Tony murmurs in response, letting his eyes slip closed. “Don’t talk to me about gross.”

He lies there for a minute before he feels Peter getting up and stepping over him toward the sink. The water turns on briefly, then goes off again and the next thing he knows, a cool washcloth is being draped over his forehead and eyes.

“Thanks, kid,” he breathes. “Now let’s never do this day again.”

Peter groans and lies down beside his mentor on the absurdly plush bath mat. _“Agreed.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Find us on tumblr: [whumphoarder](https://whumphoarder.tumblr.com/) & [xxx-cat-xxx](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/)


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